Tuesday, 18 April 2017

AN ADVENTURE IN THE ALPUJARRAS

Since just-in-time surgery last year for a giant brain aneurysm (August 2016, The Ides of March), I've had the chutzpah to do things I might not have dared before.

After 14 years of renting gîtes in Languedoc and a stressful
two years as a deputy mayor of our village, I convinced Tim to spend a couple of winter months in Iberia with our two mad terriers, Ratty and Badger. In 2003, I’d read and loved Driving over Lemons, then A Parrot in the Pepper Tree, The Last Days of the Bus Club
and, right now, The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society, all by Chris Stewart. Knowing we would
be staying not far from the Alpujarras where he and Ana live and hoping that
just perhaps we might be able to meet them, I packed Driving over Lemons and a bottle of our village’s Château d’Oupia Les
Barons in the limited space
of our camper van and, in late December 2016, we headed for southern
Spain.

When I contacted Chris Stewart (also known as one of the founders of Genesis)
and asked if it might be possible to meet him and Ana, I hoped but didn’t
expect to be welcomed, though, from getting to know Chris through his books, I was
sure that he would let me down gently. Not only was the
answer yes, but we were invited for lunch and given directions that included a harrowing drive on a narrow, twisting dirt road cut into the
mountains, with a perilous drop into the void and only the occasional
haphazardly placed stone at the edge. Some of you have already seen this45-second video clip of our drive:

When the road ended, we left the camper and the outraged
terriers and headed down to the river, where we knew from his booksthat there was a footbridge spanning the river and, from Last Days of the Bus Club, that it had recently been re-built
by Chris and his friend and neighbour, Domingo, after being destroyed by heavy flooding.

Having misunderstood the last part of the directions and following the
vague wave of the hand of a fellow we met on the way down to the river, we
headed right and found a ford, but no bridge.
Back the other way, late by nowand beginning to panic slightly,
when Tim spotted the bridge, hidden from the track by a hillock.

Bridge is a rather loose term for the plank that perched above
the stream, with a thin mesh fence on one side – an illusion of safety -
but there was no time to hesitate.

Shortly after the bridge we crossed a rill on a tottering boardand
followed the track, dwarfed by towering mountains, ignored by sheep in the pasture beside
us, passingfruit orchards and olive groves and the occasional outbuilding,
then climbed a steep laneway, where a lovely, lazy old dog barely lifted his head
and tail to greet us as we continued upwards.

There was Chris’s old Land Rover, then the stone steps to the house he
and Ana had built, then Chris with his hand outstretched. Although we were half an hour late by then, we
were greeted warmly and graciously by Chris and Ana, who saidit's not unusual for first-time visitors to have difficulty finding their home (reminding me of a non-signposted campsite where we stayed a couple of years ago, whose owner said that's how he weeded out undesirables). We chatted
easily and comfortably on their sunny, plant-draped terrace, eating the delicious,
creamy wild nettle soup and the amazing salad that Chris had made.

Chris talks as he writes,
with humour, humility, sincerity, enthusiasm and just the right amount of
irony. You'll know how hard they work if you’ve read his books.
They have a large flock of hardy local sheep (unlike the Suffolk/Hampshire crosses Tim and I had
in Canada, where I was often up to my armpit inside a ewe in mid-January,
trying to separate twins or tug out a wide-shouldered lamb), they grow and sell organic lemons, process their own olives and, with the challenges of a dry climate, grow their own
vegetables and a profusion of flowers.

An 8-minute YouTube video of Chris doing a public sheep-shearing of Chuleta:

The breathtaking view from their terrace and the tranquility made it
easy to understand why they had chosen to live for 30 years on this
isolated farm in the Alpujarras, a quiet, mountainous region in sharp contrast with the overdeveloped,
overcrowded coast of the Spanish Mediterranean.

We found a lot of common ground, including books and music
(Michael Ondaatje and Leonard Cohen).
When I mentioned having met Leonard Cohen many years ago (November posting),
Chris told me I was the 3rd woman in the past month to have said
she’d met him….

Having well over-stayed our promised one-hour
visit and nervously eyeing the dropping sun,

we hurried back to the camper and the relieved dogs (who always think we've left them forever) and on to the campsite in Órgiva. Admittedly, the video looks
more frightening than the drive itself and I’ve found no mention of Chris or
Ana, who regularly take this route, having qualms aboutthe drive.

Everyone I know who has read any of Chris’s books has loved
them. They’re funny (very often at Chris’s
own expense), touching, surprising, at times ribald and completely
enjoyable from beginning to end, with not the slightest arrogance or condescension. If you
haven’t yet discovered Chris Stewart as a writer, start with Driving over Lemons, which I’ve recently re-read and enjoyed even more than the first time. Here’s a list of his books, all still easily
available:

Driving
over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain

A Parrot in
the Pepper Tree

The Almond
Blossom Appreciation Society

Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist
Afloat

Last Days
of the Bus Club

Please share this posting if you know anyone you think might be interested in Chris, his story and his books - and I can't imagine who wouldn't be!